


Magnum Mysterium

by nightmareStag



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, M/M, Minor Character Death, au where minerva isn't gone cause i love her and i say so, but with more ships, dice rolling, im making a whole ass arc lmao, monster hunt, oof here we go again boys, this is an actual dead ass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-21 18:45:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17048597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmareStag/pseuds/nightmareStag
Summary: It's always especially bad when the abomination makes the first move against the Pine Guard.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> while I am personally writing this story, anytime i want the squad to do anything that griffin would make them roll for, i have a dice generator and am actively rolling dice to determine whether or not they are successful in that action. so far aubrey seems to be the one that keeps getting the shitty rolls but it's fine i still love her.

On a Wednesday night in February, Keith is in his parents' garage working on the dirt bike he'd busted a while back. His memory is more fuzzy than he thinks it would be, but despite his mother's fretting, he sticks to the story that Aubrey fed him without fail out of a violent mixture of fear and respect.

 

With the turn of a final bolt, he tosses the wrench he was using into a messy tool bag beside his work space and flips his bike back onto its wheels to peel out of the driveway. Keith’s engine roars in the usual chattering kind of way that echoes through the empty night streets of Kepler.  The moisture from recent snowfall still clings to the air with a musky heaviness, but while the humidity does well to keep the usual chill out of the air, the snow on the ground is still there.

 

His jacket clings to his back and shoulders as he rides further East. He bounds through the winding paths on dark roads to make his way back to the RV park where his brushes with death and magic truly solidified into the physical blow to his perceived reality that they became.

 

He never makes it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Duck has a vision. He likes to think he’s grown more accustomed to them at this point but perhaps he’s just getting better at bracing for them even in his sleep. He sees nothing, but he hears music-- a haunting refrain that chills deep in his bones as the notes go on. The chorus of voices grates against his ears with the soft displeasure of rubbing velvet the wrong way, but he feels the center of these voices draw back to one mouth that he feels more than sees. The language is as unfamiliar as the tune the words carry. The crescendo comes with a high scream that jolts Duck from his slumber harsher than he thinks it should have been.

 

Zelda is standing on the counter crouched in a position that screams attack. Her ears are pressed flat against her head as she stops her yowling to hiss again at Duck. His surroundings come to him suddenly and with them the realization that he is not where he should be. Duck is standing in his kitchen reaching blindly in front of him while his cat screams at him like he’s a stranger in their own house.

 

He talks to her in a soft voice that is reserved normally for Jane and, on occasion, Aubrey, and she puts her fur down enough to sniff and rub against Duck’s outstretched hand. He’s never sleep walked before, and it is because of this that Duck grabs Beacon from the mug cabinet before heading back to bed with Zelda in tow.

 

Beacon can make all the snide comments he wants, and because of that, Duck will never mention the comfort his blade gives him.


	2. Chapter 2

Day breaks over Kepler with the same absolute resilience that all mornings do, and with the rise of the sun, night is chased back over the mountain’s peak. Duck’s morning starts as regularly as most, all things considered. He wakes up, takes a shower, brushes his teeth, and makes a cup of coffee. While that’s brewing, he feeds Zelda. Beacon doesn’t think it’s as cute as Duck does that she follows him around his morning routine and screams until she gets fed.

 

Coffee in hand, Duck turns on the news which is the same as it is every day. The snow that has come and not really left since late November is still there, but the weather is supposed to be warming soon. Traffic is also relatively normal— while practically every vehicle is outfitted with the proper equipment for the snow, that doesn’t mean anyone knows how to use it.

 

There’s something bad, though. Something that leaves Duck with an uneasiness in his stomach and a bad taste in his mouth. He’s tense— prepared for an oncoming disaster that his visions usually foretell. It makes sense. The timeline is a little fucky, Duck will admit, but he’s never been one to choose logic over gut instinct.

 

He finishes his coffee, rinses the cup and checks his email. No new messages as of late, but he scrolls through the photos that Jane had sent him from her mission trip.  He misses her, and hopes she’s doing well, but in her photos, she appears nothing short of delighted. It’d still be nice if she’d stay a little closer to home.

 

Duck has never particularly liked the idea of taking Beacon with him to work; there are too many questions that he can’t answer if someone were to see him or— god forbid— if he started talking. However, he’ll make the exception today. It’s better to have Beacon and come up with some lie about him being into engineering than it would be to not have him. Plus, even though he’s got work right after, Mama had requested Ned and himself (and by proxy, Aubrey) to come to the lodge.

 

And that’s where he is now; stepping gingerly out of his truck and onto the crunch of the snow beneath him. Amnesty Lodge holds with it the same homey comforts that Duck has come to expect. Ned, like Duck, seems to have just arrived. He barely has time to nod before Aubrey approaches them with her own brand of firecracker energy that makes her seem to command attention in a way that Duck could never manage to get a hold of.

 

“Hey y’all,” Mama interrupts, and with her comes Barclay close in tow. “Hope the morning has been goin’ good. Y’all wanna relocate? Got some stuff to talk about.”

 

Mama ushers them all into her office, and with the door shut, they all seem to breathe a little easier.

 

“Somethin’s not right,” she continues, and it’s resolute in a way that takes some of the weight off of Duck’s shoulders.

 

Barclay scratches gently at his beard. “Have any of you noticed anything? Anything at all?”

 

“Nothing on my end,” Ned add, “But I know what you mean. There’s something in the air.”

 

There is a resounding silence, one that is both contemplative and troublesome in measure and meaning.

 

Duck is the first to speak up. “I know what you mean, but there ain’t much we can do about it if we don’t know what we’re hunting.”

 

It feels and tastes like a lie before it comes out. He knows what they’re talking about, knows better than most when there is an unnamed heaviness. He can feel it in the woods; can feel it in the wind as it blows between the pines and pushes through his hair. The rest of the pine guard knows it too, and maybe it’s because of that that Duck is more than relieved when his walkie screams to life.

 

“Duck? Duck are you there?”

 

It’s Juno— he can tell that much through the crackle static. He removes it from his belt and steps out of the office, Aubrey following short behind.

 

“Go for Duck.”

 

“Duck, we got a situation down here at the ranger station. Some kid went out last night and hasn’t come home. Sheriff Owens is askin’ for all hands-on deck lookin’ for ‘em.” She sounds tired.

 

Situations like this are relatively common. It’s a big ass forest, and people go off into it and get lost all the time. It’s not even strange for locals— especially kids. Because of this, there’s no reason for Duck’s guts to clench like they do into a horrid cacophony of fear and, for some reason, guilt.

 

“Y-yeah. I’m on my way now. Do you know who it is we’re lookin’ fer?”

 

“His name’s Keith Miller. He runs with those extreme sports kids around town the uh... What was it?”

 

“The Hornets?” Aubrey asks, but it comes more like statement than a question.

 

“The Hornets?” Duck parrots into his walkie.

 

“Yeah that’s it! Sheriff Owens is already out and about with a search party, but he asked us to go ahead and take a look around as well.”

 

“Mind if I tag along to assist?” Agent Stern asks, having risen from his usual position in the lobby.

 

“Me too!” Jake chimes in.

 

His disposition is different. Duck had never seen him in any way that wasn’t bubbly and upbeat— even when he’d narrowly escaped death at the hands of the elemental. Now his smile was so forced, it looked like the poor kid was gonna strain himself. Duck would even bet that under all that hair his eyes were filled with the same tight fear as Aubrey’s.

 

“Juno, does he need any additional pairs of eyes? I’ve got a couple of volunteers willing to join the search.”  

 

“That’d be great Duck! He was last spotted heading eastbound on main street. Couple’a neighbors said he left the neighborhood on a dirt bike.”

 

Duck is sweating bullets at this point. With the most recent conversation still fresh in his mind, he’s worried that this is gonna be something to do with the abomination. Stern’s interference is also going to be nothing but added trouble. But Duck is a forest ranger first and a member of the pine guard second, and if someone is lost and in trouble in _his_ forest, he’s gonna do anything that he can to help them.


	3. Chapter 3

Aubrey and Jake are on their way to the slopes further up the mountain in Mama’s truck. The snow tires push through the piles roughly and with a jerk that slips the tires more than Aubrey is used to. It’s alright—they make it up the mountain with no problems.

 

Locating the hornets is easier than Aubrey and Jake think it should be. The group, normally a catalyst of movement both fast and aggressive, is stagnant, huddled together like meerkats. Aubrey’s steps feel heavier as she trudges through the snow towards them.  

 

Jake has that same terse aura around him. It’s off putting that someone usually so upbeat is walking as if each step requires its own level of cognitive thought. His hair covers what the goggles don’t, and his scarf is wrapped around his mouth; but the set of his shoulders and the fall of his steps is enough to tell Aubrey all she needs to know. They both feel guilty. Aubrey doesn’t know the full extent of Jake’s fall out with them, but she can’t imagine that Jake’s break away was clean.

 

Hollace’s head snaps to attention as Aubrey and Jake approach. The mild-mannered leader is also the opposite of what Aubrey remembers of them. Their face is twisted in a grimace filled with an unnamed malice. Their glare is obvious; directed between Jake and Aubrey with rapid motions as though they can’t seem to decide who they’re more furious with.

 

“Hey,” Aubrey drawls with an awkward wave.

 

“Howdy. What do you want?” The question is posed with an aura of finality. It isn’t a question—more of a declaration.

 

“Hollace—listen,” Jake interrupts. “I know we haven’t exactly been on the best of terms, but I gotta know if you know anything about where Keith is.”

 

“No. We don’t know.”

 

Aubrey speaks before she thinks to frame her question. “Then why aren’t you looking for him with the rest of the search party?”

 

“Why aren’t you?”

 

There’s a bite to their words vicious enough to make Aubrey physically flinch back.

 

“A couple of our friends have split up to cover the trails around where he was last seen. You all are his friends. We were just wondering if he ran away from home or if y’all were hiding him somewhere—”  

 

“Totally okay if you are!” Aubrey adds. “His parents are just super worried, as you’d imagine. We just want to know if he’s alive and okay.”

 

Hollace sighs in a way that moves through their whole body. “Yeah so do we.”

 

Aubrey shuffles on her feet a few times. Any fire that Jake had brewing with in himself has died to muted embers leaving Aubrey feeling as though she’s alone in the investigation. It makes sense. Hope for finding him, especially given what Aubrey knows about the pine guard’s personal disposition, is grim. She knows it—they all know it. Maybe they don’t know exactly how bad everything seems to be, but the tension in the town is tangible enough to cut with a knife. Everything is tense; waiting with bated breath as if all of Kepler is waiting for the world to fall with a crashing rumble.  

 

“Did you notice anything weird about him before he disappeared?” Aubrey says.

 

“He was different after we all met you. I figured he was still sad about Jake—you wouldn’t guess it from the way that he behaved, but he was real beat up about you not running with us anymore.”

 

“I’m not much for anti-authority.”

 

A heated glare is shared between them if only for a moment.

 

“Now that I think about it,” Hollace continues. “All of this started after he ran into you on the slopes.”

 

“All of what?” Aubrey interjects, and Hollace turns their full attention to her.

 

“You know—the distancing. He stopped sleeping at night; said he had recurring nightmares about fire? Oh and the Mothman of all things? Not really sure where that second one came from, but I did some research after we met. Surely someone with a pseudonym  like ‘The Lady Flame’ would know something about why he was suddenly afraid of fire.”

 

“Are you implying that Aubrey had something to do with his disappearance?” Jake practically barks.

 

“I’m not implying anything, simply stating that he was fine until you both showed up and then he was real invested in her.”

 

Aubrey is staring disbelieving at Jake. She went to public school—she knows when a verbal conversation dissolves into a fist fight, and the idea of Jake Coolice getting into any kind of genuine physical altercation is horrifying in the way that watching a dog fight is.

 

“Yeah I talked to him. He kept following me, so I told him to lay off that’s it.”

 

Hollace and Jake both turn to her then. Jake looks concerned, and Hollace looks smug in a way that makes Aubrey want to punch them herself.

 

“You talked to Keith?” Jake asks her directly.

 

“I mean, yeah, but that was months ago—back in December at least.”

 

“Well what ever you said to him,” Hollace interjects, “scared the absolute hell out of him. Hadn’t been the same since.”

 

“People have nightmares all the time. You can’t blame that on Aubrey.”

 

“Plenty of people have nightmares- yeah- but it wasn’t just nightmares,” one of the boys in the back speaks up.

 

He’s short and stout. Dark brown hair pokes out from under the beanie he has on. His eyes are covered by large ski googles, similar to Jake’s , but he pulls his mask down from over his mouth as he speaks.

 

“He stopped comin’ to school, started skippin’ meetings, well more frequently than he used to, I guess. Somethin’s been off with him. I don’t really know what, but now he’s up an’ gone missin’.”

 

“There’s a bunch of people out looking for him now.” Aubrey says in a small attempt to reassure them all. “Sheriff Owens said he could use extra hands if y’all want to join the search for him.”

 

Hollace straightens himself. “Alright everyone. You heard her. Let’s, uh, let’s see if we can offer any assistance.”

 

They startle into motion at that point; all moving as a unit to make their respective ways down the mountain. Aubrey doesn’t miss the way Hollace’s eyes stay level with hers for a hair too long to be okay.


End file.
